A New Owl Species of the Genus Otus (Aves: Strigidae) from Lombok, Indonesia

Colin R Trainor,George Sangster,Ben F King,Philippe Verbelen

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0053712

Colin R Trainor, George Sangster + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0053712

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Abstract

The avifauna of Indonesia is one of the richest in the world but the taxonomic status of many species remains poorly documented. The sole species of scops owl known from Lombok has long been assigned to the widespread Moluccan Scops Owl Otus magicus on the basis of superficial similarities in morphology. Field work in 2003 has shown that the territorial song of the scops owls inhabiting the foothills of Gunung Rinjani differs dramatically from that of O. magicus and is more similar to those of Rufescent Scops Owl O. rufescens and Singapore Scops Owl O. cnephaeus. Detailed comparisons of sound recordings and museum specimens with those of other scops owls in Wallacea and the Indo-Malayan region have confirmed the distinctiveness of the Lombok population. We describe Otus jolandae as a new species, the Rinjani Scops Owl. It is locally common at elevations from 25–1350 m. and occurs within Gunung Rinjani National Park. The new species is known from seven specimens collected by Alfred Everett in 1896. Otus jolandae represents the first endemic bird species from Lombok.

Highlights

Owls play an important role in many terrestrial ecosystems [1]
Morphology To identify morphological differences between the Lombok population and other taxa, we examined 115 specimens of 9 taxa in the Otus magicus/O. manadensis complex (Figure 2), and specimens of selected other species of Otus occurring in Java and the Lesser Sunda Islands (Table S2)
Indonesia, and the Philippines has a single territorial song type, and these songs may be grouped into five categories: (i) a single whistle without overtones (O. cnephaeus, O. collari, O. lempiji, O. manadensis manadensis, O. rufescens, O. mindorensis); (ii) a single or multiple dog- or Raven-like (Corvus corax) barks (O. beccarii, O. enganensis, O. fuliginosus, O. magicus); (iii) a whistle with distinctive overtones (O. mantananensis, O. silvicola); (iv) a double whistle (O. angelinae, O. longicornis, O. mirus, O. spilocephalus); (v) a series of multiple notes (O. alfredi, O. brookii, O. manadensis mendeni, O. megalotis, O. mentawi, O. sagittatus, O. sulaensis, O. sunia, O. umbra)

Summary

Introduction

Owls play an important role in many terrestrial ecosystems [1]. despite much study, many aspects of the biology, evolutionary history and taxonomy of owls remain poorly known. The incomplete state of knowledge is underscored by the rapid increase of the number of recognized species of owls, from 146 species in 1975 [2] to 250 species in 2008 [3]. This increase is due both to taxonomic revisions [4,5,6] and new discoveries [7,8,9]. Species limits in scops owls are poorly understood due to their complex pattern of individual and geographic variation, the rarity of many species and subspecies in museum collections, and the lack of detailed and comprehensive taxonomic studies

Methods

Results

Conclusion